Bacon, Leek, Potato and cheese pie

Thought I had better give you the recipe for this as I had raved about it the other night, so here you go.  As usual I haven't stuck rigidly to the recipe (I never do!).

4oz Pastry - I used shortcrust, the recipe says use Flaky, but I don't see that it matters.  You can use frozen for this or homemade

Filling -
1 medium leek - I used two smaller ones and found that four of this size would be better
2 medium potatoes
7oz smoked bacon
1oz butter - the recipe says to use clarified, but I couldn't be bothered so used it straight from the pack
4 fl oz Milk
3 fl oz Single cream - I used double cream as I didn't have any single and it was fine
2 beaten eggs
2 tsps dried mixed herbs - I left out as I didn't have any
2 oz grated Double Gloucester cheese - I just used strong Cheddar instead, but used about 4oz
Salt and Pepper to taste

• Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5
• Slice leeks into approx 1cm rounds and wash thoroughly
• Peel and thinly slice the potatoes
• Trim off the bacon rind and roughly chop
• Roll out the pastry and line a 20cm flan dish, trimming the edges
• Fry the bacon under the fat starts to render and it starts to go crispy.  Set aside on kitchen paper
• Cook the leeks in the same pan and set aside with the bacon once soft
• Add the butter and fry the potatoes until just coloured - you may have to do several batches
• Spoon the leeks and bacon into the flan dish
• I then added a generous layer of grated cheese and sliced a couple of tomatoes over the top
• Arrange the potato slices over the top, overlapping to cover the other ingredients
• Beat together the milk, cream, eggs, herbs and season well
• Pour over the potatoes and top with more grated cheese
• Bake for 30 - 45 minutes, covering with foil if it starts to brown too much

This is great served with a simple salad or with whatever veg you have available like we did.

Enjoy!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 7

Sales -

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x 1Kg Onions £1.00

Expenses -

Nil

Easy Carrot cake recipe

I don't know about you but as I've got older I've started with a tendency to feel guilty about eating cake.  Maybe it's the thought of all that cake going on the hips!  But I feel less guilty if the cake has some redeeming qualities e.g. containing some form of fruit or nuts.  So when I found this cake recipe, well I knew I couldn't go wrong!  It's the carrots you see, makes you feel like you're eating something good, even though you're eating cake!

Again it's another clipping from a magazine, but can't remember which one.

Ingredients -
225g / 8oz Butter or margarine
350g / 12oz Caster sugar - I use granulated if I haven't got any caster
4 eggs, medium
175g / 6oz Self raising wholemeal flour
115g / 4oz Plain flour, sieved with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
350g / 12oz Peeled and grated carrots

Topping -
115g / 4oz Soft cheese, Philadelphia type
Icing sugar to taste
Rind and juice of half a lemon - I don't tend to use this as it can make the icing quite runny, then you have to add more icing sugar


Method -

1.  Place all ingredients into a mixing bowl and beat together until well mixed - I did say it was easy!
2.  Spoon into a greased and lined 20cm / 8" cake tin and bake in a pre-heated oven 180 Deg C / 350 Deg F / Gas Mark 4, for 45 - 55 minutes.
3.  Turn out onto a wire rack and allow to go cold.
4.  Mix together topping ingredients and spread over the cake.


Enjoy and don't feel guilty about eating it - it's got carrots in it!  And home-grown ones too, I hope, another way of using an abundance of veg!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 9

Sales -
1 dozen eggs £1.80
3 x bags tomatoes £3.00
1 x Cucumber £0.70

Expenses -
Nil

Great British Bake off inspiration

Inspired by the new series of the Great British Bake off, and keeping smallholding traditions alive, I've dug out an old favourite of ours - Chocolate Courgette Cake, don't worry you can't really taste the courgettes, it's a bit like the carrots in carrot cake.

I found this recipe in an edition of a smallholders magazine, cut it out and stuck in into one of my home-made recipe books.  I can't remember which magazine it was in, it was a number of years ago now, but I bring it out every year in courgette glut season.

Ingredients -

200g / 7oz Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp Salt
115g / 4oz Sugar - I used granulated
2 Eggs
175ml / 6 fl oz Vegetable oil - I used sunflower
175g / 6oz Plain chocolate - use the best you can afford, I used Bournville
225g / 8oz Courgettes - doesn't matter what colour, mine were yellow

• Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and sugar

• Beat the eggs with the oil in a separate bowl

• Place the chocolate in a Bain Marie, or in a bowl over a pan of hot water and let it melt slowly over the heat, don't let the chocolate bubble
• Grate the courgettes and squeeze them gently to get rid of excess moisture
• Beat the eggs and oil mixture into the dry ingredients and stir in the melted chocolate and courgettes

• Spread the mixture into a greased cake tin, I used a deep round one that I make the Christmas cake in, and bake at 180Deg C / 350Deg F / Gas 4, for between 30 - 60 minutes.  If you find the top getting burnt and the inside still yet to finish cooking, place a sheet of tin foil over the top.
• Remove the cake from the tin and let it cool.  Serve on its own or with cream, yoghurt etc

The finished cake - enjoy!

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 10

Sales -

1/2 dozen eggs £0.90

Expenses - 

Nil

The best and easiest crumble recipe EVER!

This is just the best crumble recipe ever, or so I've found up to now!  AND it's so easy - Bonus!

I even make double batches because it freezes so well.

Taken from Prue's New Country Kitchen, by Prue Coats, pages 152-153, which is available on Amazon, starting at just one penny, plus P&P.

900g Fruit - any you like, I frequently use apples, plums, rhubarb, rasps, or even a mixture of tinned fruit.
Sugar

175g Plain flour
110g Butter
110g Demerara Sugar - to be honest I just use whatever I've got, light brown, granulated white etc
75g Rolled Oats - again I use whatever oats I've got - porridge etc
75g Flaked almonds
75g Ground almonds

Pre heat oven to 200 Deg C/400 Deg F/Gas Mark 6
Cook the fruit lightly, spoon into a dish and allow to cool, sweeten to taste with the sugar if required - I don't tend to bother cooking or sweetening it before I put it in the oven.

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs
Mix in the rest of the other ingredients
Spoon over the fruit and bake for 30 - 40 minutes
Serve with custard, ice cream, creme fraiche - whichever is your favourite

ENJOY!

My easy bread recipe

Now this is a simple recipe that you can adjust/adapt to suit your needs - add cheese, herbs, fruit, veg etc. It's the one I use all the time.  If it doesn't turn out quite how you want the first time, just keep at it, it gets easier the more you do it.

This basic mix makes one small loaf or six rolls -
1/2 tsp Salt
300g Bread flour - white, wholemeal, granary or a mixture of the three
300ml Warm water
1 tsp Dried yeast - I tend to buy the resealable 125g tubs of dried yeast, because I don't use the whole sachet if buying boxes of sachets; it's also cheaper.

Place the salt in the bottom of a large mixing bowl, tip the flour on top, scatter yeast over the flour and pour in the water.

All the ingredients in.  This is a double, i.e. 600g flour, 600ml water etc, and a mixture of wholemeal and granary - I was using up bags of flour

All the ingredients added - white flour

Mix all the ingredients together well to incorporate all the flour, a fair amount can get left at the bottom of the bowl.  At this stage it will be sticky, but don't worry, this results in a softer loaf, I find.

Brown mix

White mix

Put plenty of flour onto your work-surface and on your hands then tip out the mixture onto the work-surface, scraping out as much of the dough as possible.

Now for the kneading!  Don't hold back, you can use them muscles.  Start pushing, pulling and stretching the dough, after each stretch give the dough a quarter turn.

Add more flour as it gets sticky, the flour will become incorporated into the dough as you knead.

Keep kneading until the dough becomes stiff, usually takes between 5 - 10 minutes.

The kneading finished

Place the dough back in the same bowl you mixed it in, cover it with cling film and leave it aside, to rest and rise in a warm room for a couple of hours at least; even better, leave it overnight in the fridge.

Four and a half hours later, mine looked like this -

Brown flour dough

White flour dough

Notice all the bubbles - that's normal.

Give the bowl a bang on the work-surface, watch the dough as it should sink quickly.

Tip the dough out onto a well floured surface and divide with a blunt knife into six for rolls or leave whole for a loaf.  Shape the dough.  If making a loaf, shape into an elongated shape and drop into a greased loaf tin.  If making rolls, shape each roll and place on a greased baking sheet.

White rolls

Brown rolls

Leave them for about an hour, or until they have doubled in size, this is the second rising.  Preheat your oven to 180 Degrees centigrade / Gas mark 4.

Once they had doubled in size,  

bake in the oven for between 20 - 30 minutes (loaves take nearer the 30 minutes), until crisp on top and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.  I tend to take them out of their tins and put them back in the oven for about five minutes to crisp up the bottoms.  Once cooked transfer them to a wire rack to cool. Once cool they can be frozen.

The finished rolls, top pic shows the crumb

They are rustic, but better for you than that stuff they sell in the supermarkets without all the preservatives in them.  They make fab toast, with lashings of butter and jam!

TIP - 

When washing up the dough bowl and utensils, rinse everything in cold water first, using your fingers to dislodge the dough remnants , then wash as normal.  Otherwise the hot water starts to cook the dough and it sticks to EVERYTHING!  

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 12

Sales - 

1 dozen eggs £1.80

1 x Geranium plant £1.50

1 x Cucumber £0.60

Expenses - 

Nil